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06.07.121:20 PM ET

Van Der Sloot Extradition to U.S. Postponed By Peru Judges

Peruvian judges have ruled that the Dutchman won’t face charges in a U.S. court until after his prison sentence is complete.

Joran Van der Sloot—the Dutchman who remains the main suspect in the 2005 disappearance of American teen Natalee Holloway—won’t be heading to the U.S. any time soon. While a panel of Peruvian judges has approved an extradition request by a federal court in Alabama, in which Van der Sloot has been charged with wire fraud and extortion, they included a provision that postpones the extradition until Van der Sloot’s sentence is completed in Peru.

Since January, when he was convicted of the cold-blooded killing of a young Peruvian woman he had met at a Lima casino in May 2010, Van der Sloot has been locked up at a maximum-security prison in Peru, where he is to remain for the next 28 years.

"We do not want his extradition because everyone hates him and jurors will be biased,” Van der Sloot’s lawyer Maximo Altez told the local Peruvian media.

The U.S. charges date to early May 2010, when Van der Sloot allegedly duped Holloway’s mother out of $250,000 after promising to disclose the location of the girl’s body in exchange for the money. According to the extradition resolution, Van der Sloot contacted John Q. Kelly, Elizabeth Holloway’s attorney, to set up the deal. With an initial payment of $25,000, Van der Sloot allegedly promised to give details on the circumstances of Holloway’s death, how the body was initially hidden, and where it had been moved. Elizabeth has claimed she paid the Dutchman the initial $25,000 and had promised to pay the balance once the remains were identified. Instead, Van der Sloot allegedly gave Elizabeth “worthless” information and then reportedly skipped town to South America with the funds.

"We do not want his extradition because everyone hates him and jurors will be biased,” said Van der Sloot’s lawyer.

It is believed Holloway died on Aruba, where she was on a high-school class trip when she apparently met Van der Sloot at a nightclub. While Van der Sloot and two companions were arrested several times on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering Holloway, they were ultimately never charged in the girl’s disappearance. In mid-January of this year, after seven years of fruitless searching for the teen’s remains, Holloway was legally declared dead by an Alabama judge.

Meanwhile, Van der Sloot headed to Peru, met a young woman named Stephany Flores at a casino, took her back to his cheap hotel room and then—as he admitted in court, where he plead guilty to murder and robbery—used a tennis racquet to savagely beat Flores to death after choking her. Van der Sloot then stole her cash, credit cards and vehicle and fled to Chile by land. In addition to his jail sentence in Peru, Van der Sloot was ordered to pay Flores’ family a $75,000 fine. Nonetheless, Van der Sloot could become eligible for parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence.